Interview with Laura Benedict
Q. What is the one question about your work you wish people would ask?
A. "Why are there no talking animals in your work?"
Q. What is the one question you don't like to answer?
A. I have no interest in speaking about politics or world events. I'm a writer of fiction. I'm not trying to instruct anyone. My opinions on those things don't matter at all.
Q. What's it like getting your first book published?
A. I always thought that publishing a novel would be everything I ever wanted and that I would never want another thing. But now it just feels like another step in my career as a writer and in my journey through life. What a predictable, human response. I should have known it would be like this!
Q. What is it like living in a house full of writers? How was it watching your husband go through the process of publishing? Did he give you many tips on getting your work out there?
A. My husband, Pinckney Benedict, and I enjoy writing in the same house. We often work in our respective offices in the morning and later go out for lunch together. It's nice because writing can be so solitary, and it helps to have a partner who doesn't take it personally when I wander out of my office dazed and distracted, only to go running back inside without saying a word. We don't read one another's work in progress; that's just a habit we've gotten into.
A. Publishing wasn't as hands-on for writers when Pinckney's first three books came out. The Internet has given writers much broader opportunities for exposure and self-promotion. Publishers, too, rely on writers more to promote their own work. Though Pinckney did have to endure a nightmarish, six-week driving tour with another writer for his novel Dogs of God; he now enters a protective catatonic state whenever he hears the soundtrack from When Harry Met Sally. I learned a lot from his experiences: 1) Never to travel with another writer, 2) Pack light (though I joyfully ignore that lesson), 3) Always know where a bookstore's bathroom is because people will ask you.
A. He's always advised me to never to turn down an opportunity to publish, even if it seems insignificant.
Q. How have your previous work experiences contributed to this novel?
A. My jobs have always required both mental and administrative organizational skills. There are a lot of details to keep straight when writing a novel. But my marketing experience has been more useful than anything else—not so much in the writing of the book, but in the promoting of it.
Q. Have you always loved mystery/thrillers? What is one of your favorites?
A. I have! One of my very favorites is Patricia Highsmith. Highsmith was a master at creating tension and suspense. There is little mystery in her stories; her gift was to be able to fully inhabit the minds of even her most tortured characters. I think she would've been a master criminal, herself.
Q. When did you first decide you wanted to write them yourself?
A. It took me a long time to come to my material. I had some ephemeral notion of literature that was completely incompatible with my skills and sensibilities. So, after two novels that didn't go anywhere, I decided to try to write a book that would simply entertain the reader, a book that I would want to read for sheer pleasure.
Q. What writer has inspired you the most?
A. There are so many, and all for different reasons. But I would have to go with my husband, Pinckney, because he has shown me what it means to grow as a writer over a long career.
Q. The supernatural murder mystery is popular in film as well. Has film influenced your work? Any favorites?
A. Both The Omen and The Exorcism of Emily Rose scared the hell out of me. But my all-time favorite has to be the original "The Haunting," from Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House.
A. I've watched a lot of Hitchcock films over the years, and was always fascinated by The Twilight Zone on television. Bewitched, with Elizabeth Montgomery, too (though I guess there was no murder there). They instilled a sense of wonder and possibility in me, even if they were a little hokey. I sometimes laugh when I think of William Shatner terrified by a guy in a bad monkey costume on a fake airplane wing—but Richard Matheson's story really grabs my amygdala and reminds me that I'm consciously aware of such a small part of the universe.
Q. I grew up in a heavily haunted house, so I have no problem believing in spirits. Do you believe in ghosts? Psychic energy? Do you have personal experiences in either?
A. Wow—I would love to hear about the house you grew up in!
A. As a Christian, I believe that all things are possible in God. Others might use the term "the Universe." I think that most humans have very narrow capabilities of perception and probably should keep it that way. I know that there have been times when I came very close to breaking through the veil that separates the living from the dead; I was terrified and had to draw back. I absolutely will not use a Ouija board.
A. That said, once I was staying at a house on the campus of an old boarding school and looked up from a book I was reading to see an old man standing at the end of a hallway. He was wearing a rumpled brown suit and carrying his hat in his hands. He smiled at me. Then he was gone. When I described him to my hosts, they said that I'd perfectly described a professor who had died some years before. I believe he was a ghost—but he was utterly benign and pleasant. There was such a sense of peace about him. Thinking about that experience makes me happy.
Q. What sort of research did you do about the meth industry?
A. Most of my research was online—local and state government websites and a few newspapers. My other resource was a Salem Virginia Deputy named Kermit Moore, who is a good friend of mine. He's my favorite source for all things law and order.
Q. I know you are from Louisville. What did you do to prepare to get into the mindset of small town Kentucky?
A. Kentucky is in my blood. My father's people were from the eastern part of the state, and my grandfather told me some great stories. (My husband, Pinckney, has also made use of a few in his work!) As for the small town part—I grew up a suburban girl, and so had some very romantic notions about small town life. Fortunately, I wasn't trying for intense realism when it came to Carystown. I did have the privilege of spending six years in the small West Virginia town where Pinckney grew up, and so got to observe small-town life up close.
Q. Do you have your next novel in the works? What is it about?
A. Yes, my next novel will be released in Spring 2009, just after the paperback of Isabella Moon comes out. In Isabella Moon I dealt with what I would call "casual evil," the unpleasant things that we see on the news every day; in this next novel, I wanted to explore a deeper sort of evil—something more demonic.
Q. Who first encouraged you as a writer?
A. A woman named Leigh Mansfield, whom I met in the first writing class I took after college. She wrote so beautifully about her own life; I found her honesty and commitment so inspiring, and she was always very supportive of my work.
Q. What are your writing habits?
A. I'm a very slow writer, and get distracted easily. I consider my family my first responsibility, and so am always popping up out of my chair to empty the dishwasher or cook something. Now that I seem to have an actual career as a writer, I have to have some structure in my day or I don't get enough writing done. I deal with my correspondence first thing in the morning, and then write until it's time to pick up my kids at school. I love to write on my laptop on the front porch so I can watch the birds at the feeders and keep an eye on the dog.
Q. I understand you are on a book tour now, what are the challenges of that? Any surprises?
A. My biggest challenge is being away from home. I am a total homebody and I worry constantly that my eight year-old son will forget to pack his snack or to brush his teeth or will lose his homework. Then there are the birdfeeders and the bills and the laundry—the list goes on and on!
A. Like so many other newly-published novelists, I think I imagined that the publisher would be more involved in promoting my book. My publicist has been great, but so much is left up to individual writers; we really are largely responsible for our own successes or failures. And it doesn't stop with the writing of the book. I've acquired a deep appreciation for booksellers—independent as well as major stores. It all comes down to the people handling, stocking, reading, and recommending the books. They're the ones who are in the trenches and do the hard work of getting books into readers' hands.
The rest of the questions require only short-take answers. You can answer in a word, phrase, sentence or two, if you want.
Q. 1. Name a writer whose work is currently making you jealous.
A. Kyle Minor—because he is young, wildly talented, and has an amazing career ahead of him. If you haven't heard of him, you will!
Q. 2. What kind of child were you?
A. Shy and, I've come to realize, kind of manipulative. Yuck!
Q. 3. What's your relationship with rejection like?
A. Evolving every day. I try not to care, but . . .
Q. 4. Did you suffer in the process of writing this book? How?
A. Only my family suffered—sometimes I would forget to cook dinner!
Q. 5. What was the greatest surprise for you in writing these recent pages?
A. That anyone might want to hear what I have to say.
Q. 6. Do you have a writerly habit you'd like to break?
Reading Internet gossip pages when I get stuck in my own work.
